Word of the Day Archive
Friday September 19, 2008
misprize \mis-PRYZ\ , transitive verb:
1. To hold in contempt.
2. To undervalue.
I hesitate to appear to misprize my native city, but how can the history of dear, sedate old London town possibly compare to Paris for sheer excitement?
-- Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
Or did he misprize such fidelity and harden his heart against so great a love as hers?
-- Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, translated by Guido Waldman
Alternatively, when disagreements are noticed, they may by chance be overemphasized by those who misprize their significance by failing to assess the pressure exerted by economic and institutional factors as opposed to the purely intellectual.
-- Ellen Handler Spitz, "Warrant for trespass/ permission to peer", The Art Bulletin, December 1, 1995
Misprize comes from Middle French mesprisier, from mes-, "amiss, wrong" + prisier, "to appraise."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for misprize
